Invasion of The Alien Snow Bears

Apparently "a White Christmas is unlikely" or so the news told us! Today we woke up to an even more snowy landscape than yesterday so it was straight down to Kirkstall Abbey to throw the white stuff at each other and build the monstrosity you see below:


Our efforts did not go unnoticed too as a random passer-by asked to take this photo to send to their Aussie relatives as proof that snow DOES in fact fall on our green and pleasant land. Seems like years since we've had proper snow :)

Happy Holidays

We're sending out a message of Kooji cheer to all our friends. Happy Holidays everyone :)

Katherine & Johnny XX


Check out previous Kooji Cards from Katherine & Johnny here

Kilo-Ho-Ho-75

We had a fantastic night out last week with the gang from Kilo75: Matt Seward, Monica Tailor, Pawel Dubiel, Dean Vipond and Mohsin Ali. After a delicious meal, some great conversation, lots of Xmas crackers (of which we had most of the prizes) Matt and Monica handed out groovy goody bags containing a moleskine, doodlebook, sharpies and sweeties. Here's to Kilo75 Hurray!


We've promised to have another get together to compare moleskines. Who's gonna have the best cover?

TrumpetCleaner is live!

That's right my brand new, interactive, mechanical portfolio site is finished. Inspired as much by cosy (dingy) pubs as it is by Blackpool, the site should also give you an idea about what bounces around inside my skull when I'm staring into space :) For me there's a wonderful nostalgia attached to Blackpool, particularly the Illuminations so what better way to decorate my creative work showcase?

Come take a nosy, see what you think. Point your browser to: http://www.trumpetcleaner.co.uk

Lord Whitney's Circus Sideshow

Last month we mentioned that during Culture Vulture's Holey Moly Arty Party we took part in a circus sideshow photography session by Lord Whitney. Well here's the result in all it's glory! Are we not beautious?


'Siamese Twins' © Lord Whitney http://www.lordwhitney.co.uk

Lord Whitney are a creative duo specialising in photography, illustration, set design and art direction. To see more of their fantabulous wonderfications check out their website, blog and photos on Flickr.

Holy Moley Arty Party

Last August we bumped into our friend Helen Harrop who told us about a Travelling Moleskine Project she was involved in. What's a Moleskine we hear you cry!? Well...

"A Moleskine® is an iconic black book, beloved by creative types (Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemmingway etc) It can be a notebook, diary, sketchbook, city guide or planner." - The Culture Vulture.

Helen was in charge of one of the 80 moleskines that were dished out by the Culture Vulture (who teamed up with The Big Draw for this collaborative project) and she needed lots of talented people to contribute words/poetry, art, photos or doodles. Each moleskine had a theme, Helen's was 'Chinese Whispers,' and each of the participants were asked to make their own creative interpretation of this.

We've heard a lot about these travelling moleskines and collaborative projects like this are always fun so we thought we'd add our creativity to the mix. Here are our contributions:

'Oobly' © Johnathan Gallagher http://www.trumpetcleaner.co.uk'Me to You' © Katherine Moss http://www.quantempus.co.uk

The ones below were drawn on the train after our trip to the London Design Festival. We both took turns to describe the features of a character: eyes, nose, hair, mouth and then each drew one half of the face.

Image © Johnathan Gallagher and Katherine Moss

Image © Johnathan Gallagher and Katherine Moss

Image © Johnathan Gallagher and Katherine Moss

Image © Johnathan Gallagher and Katherine Moss

The moleskines were exhibited in their full glory at an Arty Party held at the Culture Vulture's HQ, Temple Works in Leeds, to help raise funds for the Campaign for Drawing.

The night's festivities included a line dancing hoe down by Axis, a circus sideshow photography session from creative duo Lord Whitney (more about this later ;)), an entry in the Year Book, some conversation ear-wigging/ under cover work for Helen 'Chinese Whispers' Harrop, some naughty caricatures by Alex Hughes from The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, some wicked wall drawing by Helen Entwhistle a.k.a Memo and a nifty networking room called 'Chumspace' from Numiko.


Related Links:

The Culture Vulture >> Travelling Moleskines®
Culture Vulture Travelling Moleskines Flickr Group
Lord Whitney
Memo and Memo Blog
The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation - The Bloghorn
Axis - The Online Resource for Contemporary Art
Numiko

London Design Festival 2009

Well, it's that time again! A whole year has flown by since our last visit to the London Design Festival and despite us insisting that we would never step foot on a National Express coach again, we did (albeit only for the inbound journey - we booked bargain priced train tickets for the journey home though, which was a joy to behold). In true Kooji style we both staggered off the coach, after a brief 4+ hour ride, and treated ourselves to a full English Breakfast at Ponti's an Italian restaurant in Marble Arch. Delicious!

We checked out a few sights during our stay including a trip to Camden Market where we encountered some giant horses.

One of the highlights of this year's festival was emerge 'the debut graphic design graduate showcase of the london design festival' so we stopped by to take a look.

'Science Museum Posters' © Natalie Talbot http://www.piedesign.co.uk/
http://piesdesign.blogspot.com/

'Swagga' © Danielle Mullis http://www.daniellemullis.com/


London poster exhibition - All emerge graduates were asked to produce poster designs working with a brief produced by Pentagram. These posters were then pitched against those of established designers who worked on the same brief for the V&A. The posters celebrate London as the creative capital of the world and are created using only two colours. The results provide an interesting comparison between designers at different stages in their careers.


Emerging graduate portfolios: A selection of links found on business cards and promo material at the exhibition.

Natalie Talbot - http://www.piedesign.co.uk/
http://piesdesign.blogspot.com/
Danielle Mullis - http://www.daniellemullis.com/
Aki Makita - http://makitaaki.blogspot.com/
Lisa Edoff - http://www.edoffdesign.com/
Kristianne Phillips - http://www.kristiannephillips.co.uk/
http://www.kristiannephillips.blogspot.com/
Jack Lee - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jacktherabbit
Lucy Brown - http://www.greycaine.com/
Rebekah Burke - http://www.rebekahburke.co.uk/
Richard Carey - http://www.richardcareydesign.co.uk/
J Hannevold - http://www.jhannevold.com/
Tom Lenartowicz - http://www.tom.thrilly.com/
Tom Lovell - http://www.lovelldesign.co.uk/
http://tomlovell.wordpress.com/
Tom Lynch - http://www.tomlynch.co.uk/
David Marsh - http://www.dmarshdesign.co.uk/
Ruth Pearson - http://www.ruthpearson.com/
Daniel Camacho - http://www.dscamacho.com/
Charlie Crook - http://www.charliecrook.com/
Richard Johnson - http://www.rjdesignstudio.co.uk/
Steve Loton - http://www.steveloton.co.uk/
Sarah Prismall - http://sarahprismall.co.uk/
Barbara Ward - http://www.bward.jotta.com/

Barry Purves: Animator Extraordinaire

This month's Creative Networks featured Barry Purves, a traditional stop motion animator who has worked on all sorts from Postman Pat and Wind In The Willows to Hollywood blockbusters like King Kong. His love for animating comes from the 'performance' though as he originally wanted to be an actor. Barry showed us some lovely examples of his own work and personal favourites by other artists. Take a look:

OverTime - by Oury Atlan, Thibault Berland and Damien Ferrie

John and Karen - by Matthew Walker

Related Links:
Animated Yorkshire

Underground Art School

Earlier this year I was reading through doodlage, a fantastic website about all things doodley, and came across this blog post about a new zine called Underground Art School. This isn't just any magazine though, it's made by some incredibly creative and friendly peeps and it's jam-packed with the most beautiful and inspiring artwork you've ever seen.


We were hooked immediately and planned on contacting them to ask about how we could contribute, they beat us to it though and messaged us to say hello after we befriended them on FaceBook.

You can befriend them too. Watch this video to learn more :D

With dancing skills like this we had no choice but to ask Racheal Anilyse (whose mind Underground Art School was envisioned within) if we could promote her work through the collective.

The Current Issue 'The SketchBook' is on sale now through MagCloud, you can preview the magazine on Issuu too. I just got all three copies in print last week as a birthday pressie from Johnny and they're SoOOooo good! I did have a sneeky peek pre-birthday, but only because they sang to me from inside the parcel!!

The first issue has tons of affirmation type in it too to make you feel positive and all warm inside, ahhh :)

Open publication - Free publishing - More underground

and if that's not enough you can get that warm squiggly feeling all 365 days of the year with this cool calendar:

Open publication - Free publishing - More underground

Entitled: 'Cultivating Community through the Creative Process' issue 2 is just as ace as the first and really has loads to get your artistic chompers into:

Open publication - Free publishing - More issue 2

SketchBooks! We love ours and have so many now that they've formed their own colony and are breeding in some far away galaxy. We call them the SketchBookonians...

Open publication - Free publishing - More underground

We're both advocates of creative collaboration and community and Underground Art School Magazine is right up our street for this kind of stuff, we just love it. We read the UAS Blog regularly and so should you :D They also have a pool on Flickr, you can watch them on Vimeo or tweet at them on Twitter if you're into bird calls... tweet tweet ;)

The Scribble Project

I was reading the Doodlers Anonymous RSS Feed last week when I came across this blog post about a cool collaborative doodling project called 'Clubhouse Scribbles,' which is part of The Scribble Project. What's that? Well, it's "a playful community of doodlers who like to share our handiwork and collaborate in spontaneous art."

Johnny, me and Steve like to scribble socially, especially during a night out at Fab Cafe, so we thought this might be fun. We even had a small crowd (well two guys who were a bit pished) crowding round us eager to see our doodles. I took the opportunity to whip out the print-outs from this month's Clubhouse Scribbles - a groovy totem pole doodle that they're gonna link altogether to create one huge uber totem - so we each did two totem pole doodles and here they are!

© Johnathan Gallagher TrumpetCleaner

© Johnathan Gallagher TrumpetCleaner

© Katherine Moss quantempus

© Katherine Moss quantempus

© Steve O'Brien Super Nashwan

© Steve O'Brien Super Nashwan

If you fancy having a go doing your own totem pole doodle there's still time - the deadline is 31st July.

Check out the Website, Blog, Flickr Group, FaceBook Page, or Twitter.